The County of Riverside in Southern California Asks US Representatives for Assistance with USCIS Processing Times for EB-5 Regional Center Designation

The Riverside County Office of Foreign Trade has urged its congressional delegation, of four members, to inquire for assistance regarding the lack of communication from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the processing times at USCIS for the review and approval of applications to the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program in the form of a letter.

Since a campaign for EB-5 investment in March of 2009, Riverside County has benefited from economic growth and job creation from EB-5 investment in Regional Centers and US businesses in each of the 28 cities in the county; each of these cities has benefited from the injection of capital into the area. Additionally, Riverside County is home to one out of every five Regional Centers in the United States.

The county is seeking the assistance of State Assembly members and State Senators with the unresponsiveness, lack of customer service and long processing times at USCIS. For example, the USCIS Ombudsman and USCIS employees have not responded to calls and emails asking questions or inquiring for status updates.

The county would like to see a reduction in the processing time for application approval from USCIS for Regional Center designation and EB-5 investor visa approval and support from Washington in urging leadership within USCIS to make improvements to their customer service in the form of increased responsiveness to emails and phone calls, instead of ignoring them. The letter was addressed to US Representatives Duncan Hunter, Ken Calvert, Raul Ruiz and Mark Takano.

In the past, approval for EB-5 Regional Center designation took 90 days; today, Regional Center approval may take as long as one full year, or 365 days.

The EB-5 Program and EB-5 loans fund private and public sectors and construction projects that create jobs for the residents of Riverside County. This is especially beneficial at this time of high unemployment in the region and a time in which many banks are not lending capital to local businesses. EB-5 funding is an effective method for raising capital for both new businesses and businesses that are seeking to expand.

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